is it too early to go back?

Even though I just went in January... is March 17 too early to return to Lima? Flight prices seem to be against me.

The reason for all of this Peru-mania: Manu Chao. Lima. March 17.

He is a true punk and true artist. He turns out heart-pumping fun music made for dancing and informed, intellectual folk music with ease. He mixed genres (Reggae! Ska! Rock! Hip Hop! And more!) of music before it was cool. He is like soccer, well-known everywhere except the in the USA. He is so phenomenal that he could be a stinking rich rock star drowning in excess but he chooses not to be. He sings of topics that most people are afraid to touch, yet handles them with such deft that anyone can listen. He is the voice of not just Paris or Spain or Latin America but the world. Everyone can relate to his lyrics, if they would only listen!

Unfortunately, he rarely tours in the United States... though when he does, I always seem to just miss him by a hair and a plane ticket. The story of my musically tragic life!

A seamless blend of "La Primavera" and "Radio Bemba," the latter being a song named for his band.

The visually fascinating music video for "Mr. Bobby," named for a late artist who would've been best buds with Manu Chao.

"Me Llaman Calle," sung not in a recording studio or on stage but in a neighborhood pub.

One of his sweetest songs is "Me Gustas Tú," an easy ballad that's also great for learning Spanish.

Oh man, I missed too many concerts last year, including a rare miracle when Manu Chao performed a sprinkling of shows in Texas and Florida. Is a weekend in Lima too much to ask?

If you like music, you'll like Manu Chao. Keep an eye out for ticket information from the Gran Parque de Lima, AKA Parque de la Exposición and tell me about it!

Madre de Dios

Before I left for Peru I was leaning towards going to the rainforest around Puerto Maldonado in the Madre de Dios region of Peru instead of Iquitos in the state of Loreto. I could've had a very different experience if I had chosen Puerto Maldonado...

The Mashco-Piro tribe is starting to shoot arrows

Experts in anthropology and policy hypothesize that the tribe has become aggressive in response to threats to their land. Reconciling respect for indigenous people with the ever-growing desires of the industrial and post-industrial world is never easy but Peru can't leave this situation alone anymore. Though I can't say that the USA has set a good example with the way we treat Native Americans, it's best if Peru doesn't leave this matter on the backburner anymore.

sloth

Okay, I'm short on time tonight and I've been dying to talk about my new favorite animal... the sloth. So here it is, sloths only!

my love

Sloths are known for their slow pace of movement... according to the geniuses behing Planet Earth, sloths choose lethargy to conserve energy. Smart little guys...

In Spanish, sloths are called perezosos, or "lazy people." But that doesn't keep people from keeping these curiously enchanting creatures as pets, like this guy. He is not wild, he is a little boy's pet that he pimps out to tourists for tips. But I'll gladly pay to cuddle with something this cute!

Since this sloth is a baby, the hair on the underside was very soft. Some of the hair on the back was coarse - you can tell just by looking at his right arm. The claws look scary but are actually pretty dull, though they still get the job done. Within 10 seconds of cuddling, Perezosito had already ensnared his claws in my bag and tank straps. It took a little coaxing from the guide to get the little perezoso travieso off but let's face it, the speed of a sloth is no match for the speed of... anything else.

Holding this baby sloth made all those mosquito bites worth it.

nary a mosquito in Iquitos

Unless you're walking along malecon, the riverside walkway. But even then the mosquitoes are too tiny to see. The real mosquitoes are waiting in the jungle.

But first, we must get acquainted with the city. Actually, we have to get there, first.

I flew on the cheapest of the three major airlines that fly in Peru: StarPeru. This means I paid less than 50% of the fare that LAN charges for a flight from Lima to Iquitos. This also meant that there was an unannounced stop in Tarapoto... okay, it was announced on the plane but I certainly did not know about this when I purchased the ticket online. So travelers beware, StarPeru does not fly directly from Lima to Iquitos.

On a side note, people in Iquitos told me that Tarapoto is also a good jumping-off point for Amazon adventures but it's more touristy. I'm sure the people of Tarapoto would say the same about Iquitos.

boarding the plane in Lima... in the lower terminal

re-boarding the plane in Tarapoto.
A StarPeru employee counted the passengers on the plane, figured I was missing,
found me at baggage claim, and directed me back onto the plane.
Without him I would've been in the wrong city!
At least StarPeru ensures that everyone arrives at the correct destination.

You know you're in the jungle when you step out of the airport and the first thing you see is a woman carrying a baby monkey swaddled in a pink baby blanket. I wish I had a picture but I was too busy staring to take out my camera.


Iquitos is the largest city in the Amazon... so these pictures will say a lot about the development in the jungle:

that road must be hell when it rains

There are no roads from Iquitos to the rest of Peru, save for a small route that leads to another jungle town. And that town only connects to Iquitos. The seat of the Loreto region is accessible only by boat (to Brazil) and plane, so bulky cars aren't that common here. Rather, motos and moto-taxis are the preferred vehicle in Iquitos. Depending where you live, you might have a boat.

It's so hot the boys wear their shirts rolled up!

After arriving at out city lodging, my companion and Peruvian sister Pame and I went for a walk. We were drawn to the waterfront and the artisanal market called Anaconda. No snakes here... no live ones, anyways.

All manner of souvenirs... I picked up a family of nine sloths for 20 soles.

Piercings... a far cry from Madame Jade's dark old jewelry shop
where I got my ears pierced when I was four.
Well, maybe they're not that different...

We took a stroll along the Momon River...

... and I encountered some local graffiti, a milestone of urban culture. Looks like William is the go-to guy in Iquitos.

People really live here...

A passerby navigates the river...

Like other Peruvian cities, nighttime brings seems to draw out more people.

colored fountain at the Plaza de Armas in Iquitos

Iquitos also still wears the trappings of Christmas

In Iquitos, you just don't have a predictable Nativity scene...

According to the Jungle Book, tapirs, capybaras, and caimen came to visit baby Jesus, too!

That night - January 4, 2012 - was no ordinary night. It just so happens that we arrived in Iquitos on the eve of the148th anniversary of what is considered the beginning of modern times in the land. Two ships sailed from Lima all the way around Tierra del Fuego and up the Amazon River just to build themselves a real riverport. They arrived January 5, 1864 and Iquitos never looked back.

Celebrations kicked off with a naval band playing in the square...

Other nearby plazas had dance classes and some carnival games...

Tired from our journey and in need of nourishing sleep before the next day's foray into the jungle, Pame and I were content to chomp on a few slices of watermelon and hit the hay. We had successfully booked an overnight tour into the Amazon and couldn't wait to step foot after muddy foot into that great fantastical forest.

I ended up dreaming about Avatar's jungle that night. Drats!

book order

Received an order of books from amazon... for what I shall call my research.

I'm hoping to travel to Cuba this fall; the allure of an island stuck in time is just too strong and I'm determined to visit. Ideally, I'd go to Cuba this year but a number of roadblocks have already popped up... besides US restrictions that add the need for a visiting license, one of my cousins is getting married right in the middle of my ideal time to travel. And I've read that Cuba's baseball season starts in late November; if I go this October, I won't be able to go to a game.

Last fall I bought a groupon deal from Intrepid Travel... for $475 I got a $1000 voucher good for any itinerary in Latin America, excluding the Galápagos Islands and "short breaks," trips shorter than one week. The $1000 value is valid so long as travel with Intrepid is completed by October 31, 2012; after that it's only worth $475.

So since I used up all of my vacation time in Peru and I accrue two weeks (10 days) of vacation each year, I need to travel as late as possible to have enough vacation time for a happy trip. And that's why I want to travel in October.

Anyways, back to Cuba... picked up a couple of travel diaries to get acquainted with everything Cuban.

L: The Handsomest Man in Cuba by Lynette Chiang
R: Enduring Cuba by Zoë Brân

Knowing that any number of obstacles could delay my dream trip to Cuba, I also picked up a few books for my backup plans this fall. I'm not going to let that voucher go to waste!

Plan B: Colombia. It's time to give coffee another try! Travel information is widely available online, so I opted to go with some award-winning literature that paints a picture of Colombia's history.

L: Love in the Time of Cholera
R: One Hundred Years of Solitude
both by Gabriel García Márquez

Plan C: Bolivia. I'm guessing it'll be similar to southern Peru but smaller and with more extreme weather. There wasn't a lot in the way of novels about Bolivia so I opted for a treatise on the political culture of the land.

Bolivia's Radical Tradition - Permanent Revolution in the Andes by S. Sándor John

October's destination is still up in the air but at least I won't be short on bedtime reading for a while.

food and other observations

A smattering of whatever else I can remember about Trujillo...

Plaza de Armas during the day... and it's another cloudy, humid day!

One of my Peruvian sisters married into a restaurant family in Trujillo. This is the place where I ate lots of food cooked by... I guess I'd call him my uncle. And let me tell you, Uncle can cook!

If you're ever in Trujillo, you need to drop by. This place is only open for lunch but it gets busier than a beehive.

Unfortunately I don't have pictures of everything - sometimes food just gets scarfed down before I remember my camera - but here's a sample of the delicacies in served at Kontiki:

Papa a la huancaína, some sort of seasoned grilled chicken, and Trujillo's namesake beer. In the rectangular plate on the right you can see the remnants of tiradito, a delicious spin on ceviche that serves raw fish in an ají-based sauce rather than a lime marinade.

Tacu-tacu... this rice-and-beans log far outweighs the miniature version served at Limón Rotisserie.

Coco's special chanchito a cilindro, Peru's answer to smoked ribs... so tender. Served with yucca.

Cabrito... I'm still not sure what meat I ate here. I thought I heard chupacabra but they don't have that creature down in the South (South America.) Anyways, this meat is covered in a rich, almost tomatoey sauce and served with rice and beans.

Mussels, tiradito-style.

Tallarines! Like fettucine but with a cleaner taste (you know, since it's not made with semolina in Italy.) The sauce is very similar to pesto. Peruvians favor their noodles with a side of slow-cooked beef.

At the home of my Peruvian sister we ate cuy (guinea pig.) Lots of bones but the meat is very rich and dark. It's not my first choice of meat since the rodent is commonly kept as a pet back home but it is a Peruvian delicacy I missed out during my first trip to Peru. Just wish I had a picture!

Kontiki restaurant is really the center of the family's life. Two of Tío's three kids live above the restaurant with him. The third is Chino, the guy who married my sister. They live only two blocks away from Kontiki; as you can imagine, Chino is never late for work. Also, Kontiki is right across the street from a park so the kids never stray too far to play.

I'm pretty sure I shot at this tree with fireworks!

But not everything the family needs is so close by... the family frequented the shopping mall Real Plaza for... a price check on drums? Anyways there's a playground outside but you have to cross the parking lot to get from the mall to the mall's playground... bad idea. But even worse? The proximity and lack of height of this electric box to the playground. Yes, declaring the box peligro! will surely keep children away.

Who doesn't sell bread on the street?

Traffic around Trujillo's downtown... I'm told that Trujillo is not only the city of eternal spring but also the unofficial shoe capital. You know what that means!

Though this part of Trujillo sells shoes for all walks of life, they're not immune to vending other playthings for children...

... or food. Everyone needs a shopping pick-me-up.

The locura outside the shoe mecca...

... and the vendors who couldn't secure a space inside.

For the millions of sandals inside the cramped shoe center, we all agreed that they were overpriced. Even though the aisles were stuffy, I liked walking through the streets of shoes... the spaces here are really small, so small that sellers have to store extra sizes and styles on the second floor. Ladders are required to access the shoes.

We ended up not buying a thing at the shoe market but I might return... after a spray-tan.

scene of the crime

I have been unseasonably tan ever since that fateful day... when I visited la playa Huanchaco.

Huanchaco is about a 10-minute taxi ride away from the main streets of Trujillo and honestly, it looks a bit like Santa Cruz. There are actually quite a few hippie expats living here... their hair may be blond but they are tan as leather and they speak castellano like nobody's business. These hippies have discovered what Trujillanos already know: for R & R, Huanchaco Beach is the place to be.

not too many people,
plenty of sand,
and beautiful mountains in the distance

you don't have to fight for real estate here

Water sports are pretty popular here. My Peruvian brother is a big fan of bodyboarding and frequents the many beaches of Peru. He usually plays at the beach in Lima because that's where he lives but he enjoys visiting the beaches in northern Peru.

surfer and traditional reed boat pass by

water and haze

I snapped most of these pictures when the sun broke through but clouds are more common in the area around Trujillo. Huanchaco is no exception and the skies glowed gray for a few hours. This caused me to forget my own advice and neglect to reapply sunblock, which resulted in my shrimplike color for New Year's. I never thought I could tan my legs. I thought wrong!

But the most important member was protected, always navigating herself to the shade of an umbrella- or my hat:

baby Caye plays it safe

Remember, you can still get sunburnt even if the skies are cloudy and/or gray. Clouds so not diminish the sunlight as much as they refract it, meaning that UV rays are coming at you from all angles and not just overhead. Don't forget to apply and reapply sunblock!